The Life of The Dead
by Willie The Plaid Jacket
Summary: Short snippets of John's life after The Reichenbach Fall. Therefore, possible spoilers lay ahead. (Warning: Slashy undertones in Chapter 3)
1. Understanding

_(Title of this series comes from the quote, "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living" by Marcus Tullius Cicero.)_

_John Watson, after the fall of Sherlock Holmes._

* * *

I came to accept it some time ago: they will never understand. No-one will ever even begin to fathom what it was like, what it felt like... feels like. What it meant. What it did, to me, to my life. Friendship seems inadequate. Love carries the wrong connotations. It was what it was. No-one will ever understand because I will never be able to convey it. The English language, for all its complexities, does not have a word for how I feel about Sherlock Holmes. He was a life-changer, a force of nature, a brilliant, beautiful mind. He was sharp and witty and elegant. He was ignorant and arrogant and selfish. Obnoxious. Brave. Chaotic. Kind. Fierce. Exotic. Strong. He was the best and the worst that humanity could offer, rolled into the perfect human being. A sociopath with a heart. An untrusting man who chose to trust a broken, penniless veteran and let him into his life; into his mind. A debt I will never be able to repay.

The hurt – despair – I feel for the loss of such a unique creature, so Harry thinks, can be placated by a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I want to slap her hand away and grab her by her arms, shake her until the look in my eyes and the harsh screaming of my voice gives her but a glimpse of what I feel and she is able to comprehend how redundant her gesture is.

But I don't. I never will.

Because they will never understand.


	2. Bad News

_So, this seems to have unintentionally become a series of snippets from a post-Reichenbach John's POV. A vague storyline may appear if I carry on much further, suffice to say I have my own head-canon for what happens to John in the time between The Fall and Sherlock's return. We shall see. _

_Therefore, due to the time in John's life in which__ this takes place, it's pretty angsty. But then again, it's hardly going to be smiles and sunshine. Also, naughty language, ahoy!_

* * *

A mention of him on the news is the reason for the shards of crockery that are lying on the floor by the kitchen door. Some snobbish, uptight correspondent wanker was trying to relate a current investigation into a serial killer to 'the crimes perpetrated by the calculating master criminal, Sherlock Holmes'.

Fuck off with that, you ignorant twat.

Well, I never liked that mug anyway.

It's becoming less frequent, hearing or seeing his name in the media. They're moving on; after two months they're finally beginning to lose interest. In all honesty, it's sooner than I expected - partly Mycroft's doing, no doubt – but still not fast enough for my liking. They shouldn't have been slandering his name to begin with; the papers should be heralding him as a hero for freeing the world of the blight that was James Moriarty, not soiling his reputation and sympathising with '"the victim", Richard Brook'.

It makes my blood boil. Every time.

I had to get away from Baker Street because everything there was too much of a reminder. Now I may have to get away from London, just for a little while. Clear my head. Start afresh.

No.

No, I don't want to start afresh. I don't want to move on and pretend like none of it ever happened. That wouldn't be fair, to him. The world may not care that they're swallowing a lie, but _I_ do. I know the truth and I will die defending it if I have to. Because it _did_ happen. It was _real_. I'm not going to let Moriarty or a news anchor or some gossiping passer-by on the street take away the best months of my life.

I knew Sherlock. I saw sides of him others didn't. I saw the way he ruffled his hair when he was frustrated, the way the corner of his mouth twitched when he found something amusing, the way his face softened when he was truly, sincerely sorry for something.

The way his voice wobbled when he cried and the way it steadied when he told me 'goodbye'.

Put _that_ in a news report.

I'll pick up the broken bits of mug later, once my vision stops blurring, once I take my head out of my hands and I can swallow down the lump in my throat. I'll do it later.

Much later.


	3. The Voice In My Head

John couldn't remember her name. An hour later, he would barely remember her face.

He knew that she was attractive, that they had locked eyes across a bar; that he hadn't been in the mood for a drawn out game of flirtatious glances and false smiles, and had walked up to her and whispered directly into her ear, "Your place?"

He knew, with his face between her thighs, it had worked.

Without distractions, without incessant texts and cases and abductions, John had taken to living up to the name he had made for himself in the military. A ladies man, a man of great knowledge gleaned from 3 continents. He had always seen himself as being of average attractiveness but in possession of a large reserve of confidence. Something that had served him well and still did. Something that was making the attractive, nameless woman above him moan.

Something that, for all its uses, could not rid him of the echo in his head. An echo of his name. Whispered, breathy, masculine, familiar.

It bounced off the inside walls of his skull, drowning out all other noises.

His name, in a voice that had last told him 'goodbye'.

John clamped his eyes shut and began moving up the woman's body, trying to fill his senses with her. His hands slid up her sides, his tongue trailed up her stomach, then chest, then neck. Until he was over her, and on her, and in her.

He began to move with purpose, focusing on the warmth spreading through him with each thrust. The pressure building as his hips moved faster...

"_John..._"

His breath quickened. Sweat made their two bodies glide against one another. The edge was in sight...

"_John..._"

Whispers in his ear that shouldn't have made him moan but wrenched the sound from his throat regardless. The 'here and now' began to fade. John let go and vanished into his head, sensation and imagination merging.

"_Ngh... John..._"

There was only one face he could remember. Only one voice he could hear. Only one person, tipping him over the precipice into his orgasm in a bittersweet flood of relief. John would always remember his name...

"Sherlock!"


End file.
